


rot & replace

by hapsby



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Child Abuse & Child Death (Chara and Asriel and the Six Souls are discussed), Mentions of Depression and PTSD and Codependency, Mentions of Several Dead Characters, Neutral Route -- Empress Undyne Ending, Veeeeeeery Brief Mention of Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 13:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5709439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapsby/pseuds/hapsby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the classic set-up for an excellent joke: You knock, she answers, you deliver the punchline, she laughs, you fall like a ton of bricks. You'll never run out of tea. It is always autumn. You are in love. You could be happy here. </p>
<p>[Follows the ending wherein Undyne seizes the throne and exiles Toriel, Sans tags along, and nothing remains of Papyrus save the dust scattered meaninglessly across the Snowdin tundra.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	rot & replace

**Author's Note:**

> thanks as always to wigglytuff for pushing my depressed ass to keep writing, even when i wanted to give up. double thanks to ej, who read this and said, "it isn't crap." 
> 
> i made up like 90% of these puns myself, so if any police officers are reading this, feel free to pm me and i'll send you my address so you can throw me in jail. thanks

**[ * s t a y ]**  
Sans thinks: _what would Papyrus do?_ But that question is too painful and too heavy a weight to bear, because Sans _knows_ what Papyrus would do. Papyrus would have immediately run to Undyne's side and started clamoring for her cause, filled to bursting with his trademark can-do attitude, no matter how misguided it may be. Maybe he wouldn't understand the full gravity of the situation, but he sure as hell wouldn't run screaming from it. Sure as hell wouldn't run, sure as hell. Sans sure as hell isn't Papyrus.

_What would Papyrus do?_ is too broad a question, and the answer stretches out endlessly, spread like the fine layer of glittering dust covering Snowdin. Papyrus, Sans is sure, would do exactly what he already did if given another chance. He'd offer himself up to the human, so convinced that love trumps LOVE. Papyrus always lived by the credo that absolutely anyone can be a good person if only they try hard enough, and now he's died by it. And he wouldn't change a fucking thing, Sans thinks bitterly, not a fucking thing.

So Sans has to instead ask himself, _what would Papyrus do if he was a coward like his brother and running away?_ The answer comes to him easily enough. Either he consciously decides it, or he instinctually knows, or this isn't his first time in this particular scenario, but when Sans opens his eyes, he finds that he has teleported to the Snowdin Library.

She'll want books, he thinks. Something new to read. Papyrus would bring puzzles, action figures, sewing materials to make costumes, recipes for pasta. Things to keep the mind occupied and happy. But Sans has always been too tired for that kind of shit, so books written by other people will have to do. Sans has learned from his conversations with the lady behind the door that she has a lot of interests, but he figures she's probably sick of reading about snails or baked goods, so he stuffs his dimensional box with the widest variety of books he can fit in it. It's not like there's anyone left here to read them, anyway.

Sans walks back outside, letting his slippers crunch in the snow. He looks around, memorizing the snowy prison that became his home. He takes in the abandoned Christmas tree and its never-to-be-opened presents, the crudely made _Welcome to Snowdin Town_ banner, and the quaint little inn. Sans stands at the doorway to Grillby's for a long, long time, eyes blurring as he stares at the flickering red lights spelling out his old (dead) friend's name.

Finally, he teleports to his destination and pulls his hood tight around his head and face, the fur trim laced with powder snow. The massive purple door should look dark and ominous, but for the first time in a long time, Sans feels a spike of...something. The unnameable _something_ that the lady inspires within him.

He lifts his hand. This is the classic joke set-up: he knocks twice on the giant purple door, knuckles freezing.

"Who's there?" she asks, and that is her normal response, but her voice is tremulous. This is the first time Sans has visited her since she was exiled back here. Perhaps she is afraid that Sans is Empress Undyne, here to finish what she started. Perhaps she is hoping for that.

He breathes. "Ice."

Her laugh is softer than usual, but it still fills Sans with warmth. "Ice who?"

"Ice-hould've introduced myself at your re-coronation."

After a lengthier, more boisterous giggle, the door opens outward, revealing the lady haloed in light. When she steps out to meet him, her lily-white feet leave soft prints in the snow. She is absolutely radiant; somehow even moreso than she was at her re-coronation, and her fur glimmers as brightly as a star.

"Regretfully, we did not quite have the time then." Her lips are curled into a gentle, loving smile. "But now, my dear friend, it seems as though we have nothing but." The exiled queen extends her hand. "Perhaps this is but a formality at this point, but my name is Toriel."

Sans takes the proffered hand, and it swallows his own smaller appendage. The shock that runs through his body makes him tremble, and he knows it has nothing to do with the cold.

"Yeah, uh. Name's Sans." He knows that he should think of something more substantial to say, but he can't, and Toriel doesn't seem to mind. She pulls him through the doorway and into the Ruins, and when the door slams shut behind them, Sans can feel the noise and the magic of it reverberating throughout his bones.

**[ * t e l l ]**  
Inside the tidy little cottage, Toriel looks like something out of a dream. They eat delicious things every day. There are no burgers here; the necessary plants required to grind up into hamburger do not grow in the Ruins, but Sans has been making do with the overabundance of water sausages. Toriel even has tomatoes and ketchup. Sans has also learned he has a real fondness for butterscotch-cinnamon pie. Sans had tried to replicate Toriel's recipe way back when they were just strangers on opposite sides of a door, but Toriel's tastes absolutely wonderful and nothing like the bitter, runny, doughy mess that Sans ended up making.

They're sitting down for a slice of said pie, and the candles lit between them give off a glow that softly paints shadows and gentle orange light on Toriel's pretty face. The two of them had flirted a fair amount when they were safe in the knowledge that they would never truly be able to act on their emotions, but now that they're here together, Sans can't help but wish that this was a date.

"May I ask you something personal?" Toriel asks. She neatly dabs her mouth with a napkin, clearing away any traces of snail pie that cling to her lips.

Sans pushes a forkful of butterscotch-cinnamon pie (he's not quite brave enough for the snails yet) around his plate and snickers. "We're gonna be here for a while, aren't we? You might as well. And who knows?" He winks. "I might even give you an honest answer."

Toriel tries to smile, but it is forced. The firelight flickers, and Sans realizes for the first time that the flames are her magic. They're probably reacting to her mood. "How very generous of you, Sans. You do not have to answer. But..." The fire dances wildly, but she regains control quickly enough. "I just wanted to know."

Sans holds his breath. Toriel's ruby red eyes are narrowed, and the bags beneath them are more pronounced than ever.

"What do you do... when it all gets to be too much for you to bear? The loneliness, the regret..."

Sans feels like he's been punched in the face, and he has no recourse but to turn away. He nearly falls back on his normal defense mechanism--to deflect the problem, to joke away the issue. But he loves Toriel, and this love feels like something warm and gentle curling around his soul. She deserves better than his constant cowardice.

"Tori, I hate to disappoint you, but... nothin'. I don't do anything. I pretend it ain't happening, or I run away..."

Toriel's eyes slide shut, and the flames flicker out in turn. Despite the lack of light, Sans can see the tears spilling down her face.

"Then we are very much alike," she sniffles.

Sans slides his hand across the table and Toriel catches it in her own. They wordlessly lace their fingers together, and Sans cannot tell which one of them is trembling. Maybe they both are. The tips of her fingers run over the topography of his hand, gently tracing the structure of his bones. Sans can't even breathe.

**[ * d i a l ]**  
tori's cell phone feels too heavy in his hands. it's an old-ass model, but it's not like she had time to get it upgraded while undyne was throwin' her ass back down into the ruins. sans punches in a number that he doesn't remember from this timeline, but from some weird universe where he was given this number voluntarily, by someone he called a friend. what a joke. _friend._ that's fuckin' hilarious.

tori talks about the human kid. like, a lot. sans has seen tori break down over and over. her memory is a paint-by-numbers of fucking tragedy. prince asriel and chara, dead of unspeakable violence on the same day. they hatched a clandestine plan to free monsterkind and it went horribly wrong, and their tiny bodies fell back through the barrier: asriel's glittering dust and chara's bright red human blood staining the ground like some sick monument to their too-short lives. the golden flowers bloomed soon after--and one of those flowers--in the laboratory--

( _here, his memory draws a blank. besides, he's talkin' about tori right now._ )

and asgore was heartbroken, too, as any father would be. but he used his sorrow as a way to rally his despairing kingdom. _any human who enters the underground must die. it is so decreed. we will break the barrier with their souls and wage war upon the humans until the surface is ours. we will have our freedom, our vengeance._ but tori, sweet dear tori, couldn't bear to see any more lives lost and fled to the ruins. she sealed off the door to keep asgore out and any humans in. that way, no one else would die.

but the best-laid plans of monsters and mothers often go astray. over a span of decades, six humans fell one after another. they stayed with tori just long enough for her to fall in love with them, but then they all begged her to let them leave, and tori has never been able to deny a child their freedom. reports on their journeys would filter back to her through ghosts, through spider telegrams: they left behind their gloves, their tutus, their cowboy hats and cooking utensils. but asgore always took the bodies, always took the SOULs. a true line had been crossed, then, tori had told sans one day. no matter what his reasoning, no matter his justification, she could never love him again.

( _"eight children," she'd whispered, sobbing into his shoulder as he stroked her back in soothing circles. "my eight little melodies. asriel, my birth son, the light of my life... chara, who had been horribly abused by their foul excuse for a family, who was finally starting to open up to us instead of opening up their own veins... that bastard asgore just_ threw _their beautiful body in a box and so i stole them and gave them a proper human burial in the place where they and asriel fell... and then, as i wallowed in the deepest despair, the sweetest little boy with a blue ribbon in his hair and a toy knife fell into the ruins...he often had panic attacks, and would stand shock-still for entire minutes..." she went on to explain each child in excruciating detail until sans was fighting tears himself. it took everything he had not to lose it when she described the dark blue SOUL--not just a weapon but a snarky, incredibly intelligent ballet student._ )

tori asks sans about that human too fuckin' often, and it's getting harder and harder to dodge the question. striped sweater-human, blank expression-human, the dust of so many innocents--of _papyrus_ \--covering their hands and clinging to their hair. the human kid is a disgusting murderer, but for all tori knows, they're her last hope for redemption.

sans absolutely cannot tell her the truth. he can't burden her with the weight of any more lost lives. though the human kid's killing spree isn't her fault, she will blame herself. so sans'll shoulder it instead, gritting his teeth hard when he smiles. he commands his mouth to spit things like _i hope they found their way home. they must have, right? i hope they're happy. they must be, right?_ and the words taste like poison.

"by the way," he says lightly into the phone, "never return here. you are not welcome."

he is amazed at how calm he sounds. maybe he can control himself better because the human didn't answer their phone, and sans is just bitching at their voicemail. there's no telling if the human even _kept_ the phone. maybe none of this even matters, but, fuck, sans is _used_ to nothing he does mattering, so he indulges himself by telling the human "go to hell" in lieu of a goodbye, because he means it more than he has ever meant anything in his entire life.

tori can never know.

**[ * r e l a x ]**  
"Okay," Sans says, "How 'bout these?"

As usual, the pair are sitting by the fireplace, and the magical flames are just the perfect degree of _toasty_. Toriel is sitting in her giant plush reading chair, glasses perched on her pretty nose. Sans has long-since claimed one of the wooden dining chairs (not Asgore's and certainly not the child-sized one) and sits in it backward with his arms dangling over the backing and his chin atop his folded limbs. He's facing Toriel, of course. She's offered a hundred times to sew some cushions for the hard chair, but Sans always refuses. He's mooching off of her enough already, and, besides, it's not like he's uncomfortable. He could be sitting on spikes and still be fine if it meant he could bask in Toriel's radiance.

Toriel smiles, waiting for him to continue speaking. She's leaned forward, basically on the edge of her seat just to hear what Sans is going to say. He's so flattered, except flattered isn't even _close_ to the right word.

"If you eat too many snails, you're gonna get _sluggish._ " He grins as she laughs uproariously. "And that would just be _snail_ on earth!" More laughter. "I mean, what the _shell,_ Tori? Living like that would be a total _slime._ "

Toriel is laughing so hard that she can barely choke out, "You used 'hell' twice!"

Sans is laughing, too, because Toriel's laughter is probably the most infectious thing in the universe. Watch out, black plague and the influenza virus--Toriel's bell-chime of a laugh is far more easy to catch and spread. "Yeah, yeah," he wipes the sweat from his brow. "And the slime/crime rhyme doesn't really do it for me, either. I'll have to work--"

"Slime, crime, rhyme!" This prompts yet another fit of giggles from Toriel, who is almost completely doubled over in her chair, slapping her knee and everything. She really is the best audience he's ever had.

Without thinking, Sans reaches out and places his hand atop her head. A shudder runs through her and her laughter fades, but she nuzzles against his palm eagerly. As Sans awkwardly pets her and runs his fingers through the fur of her ears, he realizes that they've only ever touched each other like this as a way to show each other comfort. This kind of touching is nothing but pure joy, sprung from a happy moment, and Sans prays that it never ends.

**[ * n e e d ]**  
One afternoon, they go outside and lay down beneath the black tree in front of Home. They rest, shoulder to shoulder, in the huge pile of of leaves. Sans is holding one up high, peering at it with one eye shut as he turns it about his fingers. The leaves here are orange, gold, and bright red. Never green with new life, never brown with death.

Someone once told Sans that humans gush liquid when they're wounded, and that it's the same violent color as the leaf in his hand. That's how he learned what blood was. _When humans Fall Down,_ that person told him, _they take months and months to wither and rot._

Toriel rolls over onto her side. The purple and white of her; the hard but beautiful edge of her smile--it's too much and Sans has to look away. She's too gorgeous, too painful. He knows that he has to tell her the truth about why they can never leave here. More specifically, he can't tell her why she can never see the rest of the Underground and the havoc the kid wreacked upon it, because then she will be gone, too. She'll be so crushed beneath the weight of the knowledge that she unleashed that child on her own people that she'll run even further away. She'll find somewhere deeper, darker, somewhere even lonelier to hide. And there, in that abysmal place, she'll force herself to live on forever, punishing herself for the death of every single monster lost between the end of the War and the moment she let the kid leave the Ruins.

Sans absolutely can't let that happen to her. She is already suffering far too much for one person to bear. But he also knows that this is a selfish desire, too. He knows that he can't be alone, and he especially can't be without her. Now that Papyrus is gone, Toriel is all he has.

"What ever are you thinking about? You are making quite a face." She is smiling, but her eyes are narrowed with worry.

Sans sits up and lets the leaf fall into his lap. It looks too vivid against the blackness of his shorts. "You knew my old man," he tells her, and it's only _mostly_ a lie, because Sans figures he really must have been thinking about him. Other than Alphys, he doesn't know of anyone else who would tell him that weird shit about dead humans. But then again, he can never really be sure if what he remembers is real; if anything he knows is something he has done, or will do, or has done before and will not do again, or has done incorrectly and must try again, and who was he thinking about just then? Alphys? Asgore?

"But only once," he says, unsure of where these words are coming from. "Only once. Not now and never again and never before, either." Sans has no idea what he's talking about, and he begins shredding the leaf in his lap.

If this completely insane answer has thrown Toriel, she doesn't show it. Instead, she gently takes the leaf from Sans's hand, brushes the torn fragments from his legs, and scoots over so that she can rest her head and shoulders atop his thighs. "That is probably so. I have lived for a very long time."

_That can't be comfortable,_ Sans thinks. He is literally made of magic and bone, and nothing about him is soft. Unlike Toriel, who is comprised of nothing _but_ softness. But she never complains when she lays upon him like this, and she does it often enough that Sans figures she must like it, so he certainly isn't going to argue.

"I do not believe I remember him at all." She pauses, as if searching every corner of her memory. "I sincerely hope I have never known _you_ and then forgotten you, Sans." He combs his fingertips through the fur on her ears and neck as her eyes slide shut. "But... I must confess that, the first time you knocked upon my door, I somehow knew that I had been waiting for you to do so." She laughs softly, a bit bitterly. "You must find that strange."

"Nah." The leaves here don't rot, they just keep piling up. On the surface world, things rot and are replaced. Beneath the mountain, living things scatter into dust that sparkles brighter than the snow. But in the Ruins, only the two of them remain, and nothing about them ever changes. "You're not telling me nothin' I don't already know, Tori."

**[ * a s k ]**  
There's some mysterious place Toriel goes to in order to buy what groceries they cannot procure on their own, but Sans never asks her about it. Beyond that, the two of them rarely stray any further from Home than the black tree and its endless leaf pile.

One day, however, Sans is awoken by a knock on the living room door. (Toriel offered him his choice of Asgore or Asriel's old rooms, but it doesn't feel right. Asriel's room has housed far too many dead children who mean too much to Toriel for Sans to just lay claim to it. And taking Asgore's room just feels... wrong on about a billion different levels. Besides, Sans can sleep anywhere.)

"Whozzair?" He slurs through a yawn that nearly unhinges his jaw.

"Ty and Nick!" Toriel chirps exuberantly, and her voice makes something inside of Sans flutter.

"Ty and Nick who?" He asks, struggling to sit up and disentangle himself from his blankets. His bedding lays in the floor in front of the fireplace at the foot of Toriel's chair, and despite the fact that Sans occasionally breathes in white fur while he sleeps, it is absolutely the perfect sleeping situation. Actually, he doesn't even mind the fur, really.

"It's _ti_ -me for a pic- _nic_!" She bellows triumphantly.

Sans cracks up. "A _double_ pun?!! Tori, you are just _two_ much for me!"

Laughing as well, Toriel enters the room and unceremoniously scoops Sans up off the floor, blanket and all, and dumps him in her giant reading chair. It nearly swallows him whole, and it is extremely comfortable, and it smells just like her--

"Do make yourself comfortable for a little while longer. I need to make some preparations in the kitchen." As she walks away, she throws a wink over her shoulder. "Or should I say pre- _party-_ ions?"

That one isn't even that good, but Sans's laughter is genuine.

He must have dozed off again, because before he knows it, Toriel is shaking him awake. She's got a huge wicker basket tucked neatly under one arm; with her other, she is extending a paw to Sans. "Are you ready, my dear friend?"

Sans takes her hand, still stunned by the way this simple touch makes him feel, and grins. "Ready as I'll ever be. You look like a bit of a _basket_ case, though..."

Several atrocious puns later find them in a part of the Ruins Sans has never seen before. It's a balcony of sorts that overlooks the former Capital City. Now it looks like a ghost town--a seemingly endless array of buildings with no lights inside them; no streetlamps; no sign of life.

"It used to be quite beautiful here," Toriel says as she begins setting up their lunch. "but overcrowding was a serious problem."

"And the monsters were becoming restless," Sans nods as he busies himself pouring two cups of yellow flower tea. Toriel takes hers with cinnamon. Sans doesn't mind the bitterness. "And they weren't scared of the humans chasin' 'em down anymore. So they branched out. Right?"

Toriel chuckles. "Well! Good to see someone paid attention in school."

Sans laughs in affirmative, but that isn't quite the truth. He didn't go to school on the surface or in the Underground. But that part of his past is dead, so what does it matter now? "I studied in Hotland," he says, which is true. It's just not the truth she's looking for.

Toriel sighs, blowing on her tea slightly to cool it down. "I studied on the surface, of course."

"Do... you miss it?" It's a stupid question, and Sans hates himself for asking it. "I mean--I'm sorry. Of course you do. Forget I asked."

But Toriel only smiles--that warm, radiant smile. "Of course I do. I miss rainstorms. I miss the endlessness of it. I miss all the libraries, all the universities, all the learning. And the _stars_ \--oh, Sans, you would just die if you could see the stars!"

Before Sans can respond, she sits her teacup down and grabs both of his hands in hers, pulling him forward so that their clasped hands are pressed just below her neck. "Please, Sans. Please promise me that one day we'll make a wish together beneath the stars. You can bring your telescope and you can show me all the constellations. Please promise me that we'll share an umbrella during a real rainstorm."

Sans sucks in a shaky breath. He wants to kiss her more than he's ever wanted anything. Their close proximity is almost too much to bear, and it feels like his whole body is vibrating with heat. "Geez, lady," he rasps, having a hard time finding his voice, "you know how I am about promises. I hate 'em. But..."

He looks into her eyes, ruby red like human blood, and shivers with pleasure. "But I hear ya. Real stars. Real rain. You'll have to hold the umbrella, though." He chuckles.

"Oh, _Sans_!" Toriel cries out, pulling him against her chest. Sans disentangles their hands so that they can properly embrace. The dead city watches them as they hold each other tightly. By the time they let go, their tea is ice cold.

**[ * r e c a l l ]**  
Sans doesn't know how much time has passed, but he knows that this is the longest that the Entity has gone without resetting. The Entity, or the human, or a demon that comes when you call its name. Sans isn't entirely certain who is in control, but two theories are likely: The first theory was postulated by his fellow Dr. Alphys, who claimed that a human child with enough of what their leader, #%!( &^, had called "determination" could reset timelines at will.

The second theory was brought forth by #%!(&^ and extrapolated upon Dr. Alphys's original theory. A human child could certain produce enough determination to change the flow of time; even to create new timelines. Perhaps even to destroy them.

Sans's memory of this conversation is like looking at an etch-a-sketch drawing, or a busted videotape with garbled audio.

#%!(&^ placed a hand on each of his pupils' shoulders. "But," they said, and Sans cannot remember what they looked like. He cannot even remember an outline of their body, just the bright blue of their eyes. "Would a human child have the _mental_ capacity for such deeds? Perhaps there is an Entity, one with the power to control a determined human..." The voice laughs, and it sounds like a thousand computers spitting error messages at once. " _I_ \--rather, _we_ could become such an Entity. We must construct a machine that can extract determination..."

Dr. Alphys was sweating buckets, and she spoke, but Sans cannot remember what she said. But he took her hand, and her claws dug so deeply into him that it actually somehow hurt.

#%!(&^, still gripping their shoulders, turned them roughly to face them. "This project is going to be very, very interesting... what do you two think?"

"Sans!"

The skeleton jumps about a foot into the air. Toriel is standing over him, a bottle of ketchup in one hand and a glass of something suspiciously grey and goopy in the other.

"Heh heh!" Sans says, a bit manic. They're in the living room by the fireplace. Toriel must have just come out of the kitchen. Sans is sitting in Toriel's chair, but he doesn't remember dozing off. In fact, he's certain that he _wasn't_ asleep, and he is the number one expert on nap science. "Heh! You scared me right down to my bones, Tori!"

It's a shitty joke, but Toriel, as always, has the grace to laugh anyway. She hands him the ketchup and tries her best to keep smiling.

"Nightmares again, huh...?" She brushes her knuckles against his cheek, and he leans into her touch, yearning for it desperately.

"Ah. Yeah. Well, it's no big deal. They happen, I guess." But it wasn't really a nightmare, and eventually, Sans is going to have to stop lying to her.

But she gently picks him up and slides into her chair so that she can hold Sans in her lap. Even though Tori's snail-shake smells absolutely foul, Sans can't think of anything more wonderful than this, and he knows he cannot tell her just yet.

**[ * g i v e ]**  
The Ruins don't particularly have any concept of time, but right now, it is what they pretend is very late at night. Sans is sitting at Toriel's desk, listening to her read from a book about stars. He's always loved stars and space and the sky, but it's even more lovely when she is explaining it to him.

Toriel herself is lounging on her bed, propping herself up with her headboard with her legs crossed at the ankles. She's wearing a nightgown--nothing scandalous, of course, just something shorter and filmier than she usually wears. It's still purple, of course, but a very pale shade, and patterned with tiny white flowers. They've lived together for quite some time now, so this arrangement should feel uncomfortable or embarrassing, but it doesn't at all. She's cried on his shoulder too many times to have anything to hide, and he's shown her more of his real self than anyone has ever seen, except for maybe Papyrus, but all _those_ secrets died with him.

"Ironically enough, I am not a Capricorn," Toriel chuckles as she reaches the section about the Zodiac.

They both laugh at that, but Sans's laughter is weaker than it should be. In some alternate timeline where that bastard child spared Papyrus, he had suggested that Sans bring along a book about horoscopes-- _You said she was a goat, right? I bet she's a Capricorn!!_ he had enthused. But Sans had never told him any such thing, so how had Papyrus known? Could he, too, remember bits and pieces of their fragmenting timelines? He _did_ recognize the human, after all...

"Then what are you?" Sans is staring down at Toriel's diary, because he knows she'll see the hurt on his face.

"Hee hee hee. I'm a Vir- _cargot_!" She cackles, slamming the heavy book shut.

"Oh, _god,_ " Sans wheezes through laughter he can't tell is real or fake, "that's goin' in the books." Without a second thought, he flips the diary open and scribbles the new pun in. The pages, once filled only with jokes Sans told Toriel through the door, have become an amalgamation of their shared comedic genius.

"One day, when we get to the surface, we will immediately work on getting this published. It is an absolutely treasure trove." Toriel stretches and yawns loudly. "But that is a discussion for another day. I am rather sleepy, my dear friend. Perhaps we should part until morning, loathe as I am to see you go."

For one wild instant, Sans thinks that that was an invitation. But he shrugs it off. "Sure. 'Night, Tori." He slides the chair back, rises to his feet with an audible pop of his joints, and begins walking toward the door. He turns back, just briefly, just long enough to let her smile warm him from the inside out.

_How much longer can we live like this?_ Sans almost thinks he said this out loud, but Toriel is silent. How much longer will they be here? This is by far the longest the timeline has gone without resetting. So when will Sans suddenly wake up at his sentry post in Snowdin, freezing cold and with the memory but not the taste of butterscotch sticking to his teeth?

It could be any second now, so--

"Sans, what do you mean, _how much longer_?"

\--he crosses the threshold to her bed, gently takes her wrists in his and leans in, searching her eyes for anything short of the burning _love_ within them, and kisses her.

Neither of them disappear. Nothing resets.

"Oh, my, well--Sans--you simply could have told me, but--I did quite like that--and my feelings for you are certainly--"

She's so radiant, and Sans has never felt more filled with light and beauty and joy. She pulls him flush against her and kisses him harder, the two of them tumbling together in a messy tangle of limbs.

The timeline marches on.

**[ * c o n c e p t u a l i z e ]**  
how long  
?

do we stay in this timeline ? how long ? if it changes if it resets let it happen soon let it happen neve r

_* can you accept having to do all this again? queen toriel might die, papyrus might die again, you might die--well, you don't care about that, huh? king asgore will die, again and again, eternally paying for the same sin. captain undyne melts, bleeding love all over waterfall. doctor alphys sees nowhere else to turn, and so--_

*** so i just give up. that's what you're saying. well. least that's something i'm good at.**

_* a human idiom springs to mind: bury your dead, sans. you can be happy here._

and, you kn ow

he's no t happy, but, tori is so soft and radiant and bright, and he can't see the real night sky with the real stars, but they laugh down here in this twice-removed world. removed and rotting, but maybe not replaced.

_* if this is the way of things, please be happy. your brother would want you to be honest with yourself. your brother would want you to be happ--_

sans isn't su re how they're talking, or where or when. but he distantly knows the voice, and the sound of it fills him with--

**[ * S A V E ]**  
It's a perfectly normal afternoon, probably the sixtieth of its kind, and the two of them are in their normal lunch spot beneath the dead black tree.

"Toriel," Sans says, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible. But it's hard to stay calm when he looks at her. The tree branches dapple her with shadows and light. She has a crown of bright leaves around her horns.

She looks at him with concern, and when their eyes meet, he almost loses his nerve. "You... never address me as anything but Tori," she says hesitantly, and it feels like a knife to his heart. He doesn't mean to worry her or hurt her, but he has to.

"I have something I have to say." For once, just one fucking time, Sans has to do right by Papyrus. Papyrus is dead, though, so he'll just have to hope honoring his memory is enough. He'll have to hope that owning up to his lies and trying to love and be loved by someone on completely honest terms is enough to honor Papyrus's memory. Sans has to hope that Papyrus would have wanted that; that Papyrus would finally be proud of his useless, coward brother.

"Sans, wait--"

"No, please, don't stop me. I ain't got the courage to--listen, Toriel, my bro, I mean--and the kid--and Snowy, this teenager from Snowdin--and these Royal Guardsdogs--and that kid can reset time and there's no tellin' how many fuckin' times we've done this--"

When he tells her everything, she cries so keenly that Sans is worried it will tear them both apart. Somehow it hurts _now_ more than it feels like it should, and Sans knows in his heart he should have just told her from the beginning.

He reaches out to comfort her, but she recoils so violently that her back slams against the tree with a sickening crack, and they both gasp aloud. She doesn't appear physically hurt, but her tears won't stop flowing.

Sans can feel the panic settling in. The spikes of it stab through his abdomen, writhe through his body like snakes, and curl around his brain where they pound like his anxiety has a pulse of its own.

When Toriel finally finds her breath, she says, "Since. Since you have been honest with me, I must also tell you that--if this all changes again, I need you to remember--" She scrubs violently at her eyes and the tearstains beneath before fixing Sans with a watery smile. "Knock knock."

Sans is so stunned he can't even give the proper answer. "Tori..."

"Knock knock!" Her mouth is a tight line. Sans can't breathe, and for once, it is an entirely unpleasant feeling.

"Who's...there?"

"Adieu." Her voice is still trembling with unshed tears.

Sans jumps backward as well, feeling trapped. This was all so fucking stupid--at least when he was lying to her she cared about him--and now he's fucked up the last beautiful thing in this world. No, even if the Underground was full, Toriel would still be the most wonderful thing, and he's completely ruined it.

Toriel leaps forward, catching Sans before he can fall on his back. Her hands around his shoulders are as warm and strong as ever, like dimly burning fire magic. He flinches, but she doesn't let go.

"Adieu," she says again, lowering her face to his.

"Adieu who?" He croaks. Might as well face the executioner head on, he decides.

"Adieu _really_ love you. Did you think differently...? I cannot imagine how hard hiding the truth of your brother's death must have been for you, and yet you were willing to shoulder all of that pain for the sake of this silly old lady..."

Sans can scarcely believe what he's hearing. His knees buckle and he falls forward, letting Toriel wrap him up in her loving embrace. He tries to fight back the tears, but he cannot stop himself from trembling violently. "Tori..."

"I know that you dislike promises, my dear lover. But I fully intend to hold you to them. You must take me stargazing beneath the real sky. You must share an umbrella with me in a real rainstorm as we have a picnic in the rain like fools."

"Like young fools in love," Sans mumbles, and then they both laugh, though no joke was made. This laughter is born of love, of relief, of honesty, of promises, of hope.

Sans lurches his weight forward and the two of them tumble backward into the leaves, wrestling, kissing, howling with joy, and though Sans can feel the world resetting, he knows they're both filled to the brim--

**[ * c o n f e s s ]**  
\--with determination.  
(* the erased skeleton pulls you into combat.  
_"quit waiting for absolution..."_  
* horrifying, glitchy bullets whiz harmlessly beside you.  
* the air is filled with the sound of a keening, maddening drone.  
_"the only one who hasn't forgiven you IS you."_  
* he spares you, sending your SOUL spinning back into your body, and sending your body spinning back into reality.)

__**[ * d e l a y ]**  
\--with determination.  
(* you jump away from the knife and retaliate by firing a circle of lasers that bounce all over the cathedral. you can't dodge forever, but neither can frisk, and they've already died countless times. you don't want to think about the blood on your hands. you don't want to think about the stench of sizzling flesh when the lasers burn frisk to a crisp. you wait and wait and wait for them to come back, and then you feel the old familiar tug in your brain.  
you can't believe it.  
your plan worked.  
the fucker gave up and reset.) 

__**[ * r e p e a t ]**  
\--with determination.  
(* you make sure the whoopee cushion is well-hidden in your palm. you are _totally_ gonna own this human.  
but you don't. they seem completely nonplussed.  
actually, they turned around before you asked them to...)  


__**[* l o v e ]**  
\--with determination.  
(* you blink out of your sentry post. your brain hasn't remembered yet, but your body knows to teleport to the sealed purple door. your hand knows to knock. your mouth knows to form the words. 

* adieu--  
* --who?--  
* really  
* love  
* [papyrus. alphys. undyne. asgore. mettaton. napstablook. the people of snowdin. the people of waterfall. the people of hotland. _frisk._ everyone.]  
* YOU.) 

**[* L O A D ]**  
"--UP, YOU LAZYBONES!!!" 

Sans lifts his head lazily, and peers at his brother. He wants to leap into his arms and smother him with really embarrassing kisses, but he doesn't quite think Papyrus would understand why Sans would act so affectionate. As far as Papyrus knows, they haven't been apart for longer than an hour or two, and Papyrus certainly wasn't dead. 

"I'll have you know I've gotten a skele- _ton_ of work done today," Sans puffs up proudly. "In fact, I'm going to go patrol the forest right now! Just had to rest up so I'd be at my best, y'know?" He gives his brother an extremely dramatic wink. 

Papyrus groans. "You sound sincere, but the Great Papyrus KNOWS when he's being japed!!!" He stomps his foot over and over, trampling the poor snow into slush. "BUT...what else can I do with you?!!! Go patrol wherever you want!!! Ugh, what a useless brother!!! Don't you know you're the OLDER BROTHER?!?!?!" 

As Sans walks away, he waves at Papyrus over his shoulder. "Take care of yourself while I'm gone, bro! I love you!" 

For once, Papyrus is completely and utterly speechless as he watches his brother retreat into the forest. 

After walking far enough away that Papyrus can no longer see him, Sans quickly teleports to the great purple door. He's already visited the lady dozens of times in this timeline, but today is special. Today he knows that the human kid is coming. Call it a sixth sense, but Sans has lived through this enough to feel the kid's arrival in his bones. 

He's about to rap twice on the door, but the lady beats him to it, which is completely new. 

"Who's there?" Sans plays along, of course. 

"Adore," she says, her regal voice sending shivers down his spine that have nothing to do with the cold. 

"Adore who?"  
  
"A- _door_ is inbetween us! Ha ha ha ha ha!" She's laughing her ass off in there, and of course Sans joins in. _Incidental_ puns? This woman is just too good. Sans is head over heels for her, and he doesn't even know her name, though he knows that he once did, and that's good enough for him. 

Her laughter finally subsides. "My dear friend, I know in my soul that our meeting will be fortuitous. I also know in my heart that you and I have made each other many promises, and I intend for you to see them through. Are we clear on this issue? You may back out--" Here her voice turns sly-- "if you wish to completely shatter a delicate old lady's heart." 

More laughter. When the two of them are together, everything in Sans's world feels full of warmth, and he can almost picture her in his mind: the firelight playing on her glasses, the purple and white of her, the dizzying heat of their bodies tangled together. "Yeah, yeah, I know, lady. A real rainstorm, real stars, a hundred libraries in a hundred cities. I told you, I'm gonna show ya all those things, and anything else you wanna see. We'll go together." Sans doesn't know what void, what overwritten memory, he pulls these dreams from, but they're _real_ and _right_ and make his mouth taste like butterscotch and cinnamon. 

After finishing this little proclamation, Sans presses his hand against the door, and though he cannot see her, he knows that the woman on the other side is mirroring his action, as if they're touching one another. Even though he isn't actually touching her, Sans still feels giddy and sort of like a kid with their very first crush. It's a wonderful feeling, and Sans hasn't felt anything even close to _wonderful_ for what feels like thousands of years. Not in _this_ timeline, anyway. 

"That is correct. And as for my most important request..." 

Sans lets the woman's voice wash over him, filling him up with brightness, warmth, and radiance. He pulls up his fur hood, tightens the drawstring, and turns to face the eastern road, where Papyrus and Grillby and Snowy and the entirety of the Underground are waiting. Waiting for Sans. Waiting for the human kid. Waiting for the freedom that lies just within all their grasps. 

"...No one is gonna die under my watch. Look, lady, I got this under control." 

These words, too, feel right and real. 

**Author's Note:**

> * the various style changes in some vignettes are done on purpose, not because i'm a shitty writer. okay, yes, i'm a shitty writer, but that part was intentional.  
> * sans only closes his neutral ending phone call with "go to hell" if you've killed more than 20 monsters. basically, i'm saying you were a real fucko in this run.  
> * originally i had frisk kill sans at the end of the genocide run, but then i decided i didn't want the "bad" pacifist ending, when this fic is obviously leading up to the "good" pacifist end, hence the player rage-resetting and trying another route (though i love the idea of chara tagging along in frisk's head, but...not hurting a fly. but that's a story for another day)  
> * "monsters' bodies can't withstand determination/can't save/can't load!" you cry. the latter two are merely sans forcing himself to SAVE his memories and LOAD them in frisk/chara/player's next reset. the former...? it's not determination he feels. it's the warmth, the radiance, the softness. papyrus, as always, was right: love has trumped LOVE.  
> here have fifteen trillion words of headcanon-y crap that i kept in mind when i wrote this:
> 
> * i have... a LOT of headcanons and theories about the six SOULs. one i hinted at here is that the monster who killed the human absorbed a bit of their power. toby confirmed that asgore killed one or more of the humans himself, so perhaps he handed out the colored SOUL modes to some monsters? i could see muffet killing purple SOUL on her own (she only cares about spiders after all), but sans is only at 1 LOVE (meaning he probably couldn't have killed the ballerina without leveling up--they made it all the way to waterfall and their tutu was covered in monster dust--they were killing monsters and gaining LOVE) and pap has definitely never killed anyone, so maybe sans/pap obtained dark blue SOUL powers some other way. i personally think sans used to be a scientist working under gaster with alphys (who seems to have the yellow SOUL's powers--she grants you yellow SOUL mode which fires bullets; yellow human used a gun), so maybe at some point after the humans traversed the underground, asgore gave alphie and sans those powers, and sans shared it with pap. sssshhh, it's my fanfic, i can be as ridiculous as i want, not that it's even all that IMPORTANT here... i'm just explaining why sans was upset about the ballerina *ollies into the trash dump*  
> * this is all probably mega ooc on sans's part--i know he's completely hopeless until frisk restores his faith in a true pacifist run. but surely that doesn't mean toriel didn't help at all--she inspired him to begin digging his way out of depression by giving him things to be interested in again. socks, cooking, snails... aaah, true love. 8') 
> 
> * anything else that may have confused you was intentionally left shrouded in darkness.... hee hee hee........
> 
> i have a tumblr thing and it is [channelcherry](http://channelcherry.tumblr.com). talk to me about toriel having a good day.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Everyone is Fine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792695) by [flowersalesman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersalesman/pseuds/flowersalesman)




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